Cryptocurrencies on Thursday

Digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and others became a lucrative source of income. Nowadays, potential investors are willing to invest in cryptocurrencies. However, it is essential to note that due to a massive number of cryptocurrencies, a lot of people lack information about the crypto currency market. Let’s start with the price of the most-well digital currency, which is Bitcoin.

The price of Bitcoin entered the $10,000 zone on Wednesday, which is excellent news for Bitcoin. At the moment, the price fell to less than $10,000 per Bitcoin. However, it has the chance to regain the lost position. At some point, it reached $10,182 before decreasing to the current level.

There are several factors which will determine the price of Bitcoin. The main support level of Bitcoin is close to $9,850. It means that if the price continues to decrease, it is possible to fell to $9,650 level. However, it is important to mention that any further losses might force the price of Bitcoin decreased to $9,300 zone. On the bright side, if Bitcoin can overcome the resistance near the $10,000 level, it might encounter next resistance, which will be $10,200. If Bitcoin is going to reach this level, it will have the opportunity to reach $10,500 per Bitcoin. Right now the price of Bitcoin is $9,944.

Ethereum and Litecoin

Another cryptocurrency is Ethereum, which is a second-biggest digital currency. The price of this cryptocurrency increased in the last several hours when it was close to reaching $220 per Ethereum. However, price decreased below $215. It is worth mentioning that Ethereum managed to reach the highest point during this week against the U.S. Dollar. The good news is that it has the chance to improve the situation and once again surpass the $215 level. It might even reach $225 or more if Ethereum can overcome the current level.

Litecoin is another popular cryptocurrency. Right now, this digital currency is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency with the market value of $6 billion. The price of Litecoin increased during the late Wednesday session. It was close to reaching the $100 level. However, Litecoin was unable to retain this level, and at the moment, the price of Litecoin is $96.94.

U.K. authorities and digital currencies

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of U.K. warner potential investors that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have no “intrinsic value.” The United Kingdom joined the list of countries who are cautious about the cryptocurrencies. Christopher Woolard is an executive director of strategy and competition at FCA.

He stated that cryptocurrency is a complex and emerging market. He warned that potential investors should be careful when investing in cryptocurrencies. His advice is to learn more about the digital currencies before entering this market. It is technically correct that cryptocurrencies have no “intrinsic value.” However, there are numerous examples when intangible assets gain value, according to Jon Oster.

Cryptocurrencies are becoming more popular around the world. It is a good idea to gather information about the advantages and disadvantages of any digital currency. There are many issues connected with digital currencies. However, digital currencies have huge potential when investors know how to use this opportunity.

Crypto currency market on July 31

Cryptocurrencies and news about their prices or possible regulations are essential to understand the crypto currency market. People who are interested in crypto investing allocate a considerable amount of time to learn more about this ever-changing business.

Price of Bitcoin, Etherium, and other digital currencies continuously change, and it takes some time to accustom to this fact. It is worth mentioning that the crypto currency market is a relatively new concept, and people find it hard to understand its principles. In this article, we will cover the price of major digital currencies. Also, news regarding the regulations of cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies on Wednesday

The price of the digital currency goes up and down all the time. There are over 1,000 digital currencies in the world. It means that it is tough to pay attention to all of them. However, there are several vital cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Etherium, Litecoin, etc. At the moment, Bitcoin is one of the well-known cryptocurrencies in the world.

According to the information by 03:59 GMT the price of Bitcoin was $9,660. Also, BTC/USD increased by 2% on a day-to-day basis. It is worth mentioning that by that time, the total capitalization of all digital currencies reached $268 billion. The total trading volume of Bitcoin decreased to $46 billion. It means that 64.5% of the market share belongs to Bitcoin.

However, the price Bitcoin changed in several hours to $9,700 per Bitcoin. During the last 24 hours, this cryptocurrency increased by nearly 3%. It is good news for Bitcoin because it means that digital currency recovered from recent lows and reached $9,700.

Another important cryptocurrency is Ethereum, which is the second-largest digital asset. The market capitalization of Ethereum is $22.7 billion. Several hours ago, more precisely at 03:59 GMT, the price of this digital currency was $210. On a day-to-day basis, its price increased by 2%.

At the moment, the price is $212, which means that the price of this digital currency continues to grow on Wednesday.

Litecoin is also one of the most important cryptocurrencies. At the moment, it is on the fifth place in the global cryptocurrency market rating. The market capitalization of this digital currency is $5.7 billion, whereas an average trading volume is more than $2 billion. Several hours ago the price of Litecoin was $91 since then price increased to 92.70 per Litecoin.

Legal issues and digital currencies

Governments around the world are trying to regulate the crypto currency market. However, there is no single approach regarding cryptocurrencies. For example, in India, there is no official ban on cryptocurrencies, but the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has its regulations. RBI in the past barred local financial organizations from providing services to crypto businesses.

Several days ago an Indian Government panel recommended banning the cryptocurrencies completely. Nasscom is a primary Indian Trade association with more than 2,700 member companies. This organization made it clear that they are against banning the cryptocurrencies. Nasscom stated that it is better to regulate the cryptocurrency than to ban the digital currencies.

Cryptocurrencies are becoming more popular around the world. It attracts current and potential investors as it offers an alternative to traditional payment methods. Cryptocurrencies have a huge potential, and with proper regulations can contribute to the global economy.

The role of digital currencies in the global economy

Governmental, as well as private organizations around the globe, have different attitudes when it comes how to regulate the crypto currency market. It is one of the most debated issues, and there is no perfect solution. This issue is becoming more visible, and even in the U.S. lawmakers, regulators and private companies are unable to come to an agreement. It is a well-known fact that there is a huge number of cryptocurrencies. However, only a few digital currencies such as Bitcoin and upcoming Libra project attract attention from the lawmakers. This is not necessarily good news for the future of cryptocurrencies.

Facebook’s Libra project and Bitcoin

Investors and people who are familiar with digital currencies know that Libra is facing questions from various regulatory bodies. Facebook, in its latest quarterly report, mentioned several problems connected with the Libra project. Thus, the company warned that it might delay the launch of the cryptocurrency.

There are chances that Facebook might not be able to launch the Libra project at all. According to the original plan, Libra should become available in 2020. However, due to the legal challenges, it is hard to say for sure that Libra’s launch will follow the initial goal. Facebook wrote in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its project is under scrutiny. It is not the first time Libra faced problems. For example, David Marcus had to face tough questions during his visit to Congress.

Marcus is the head of Facebook’s digital currency project. According to him, this new digital currency will provide alternative payment tool for customers. He stated that Libra is a low-cost and secure alternative for people who can’t afford the traditional methods.

The issues with Libra also affected other digital currencies, including Bitcoin. The price of this cryptocurrency decreased by 2.6% to $9,517 on Tuesday. Litecoin fell by 1.6% to $89,133. The price of another cryptocurrency, Ethereum, also decreased by 3.3% to $205.25. This happened by 04:15 GMT.

Chinese market and digital currencies

China is a typical market when it comes to digital currencies. On one hand, China banned bitcoin exchanges in 2017. On the other hand, several weeks ago the Chinese court recognized cryptocurrency as a digital property. However, it is worth mentioning that 60% of bitcoin’s total computing power is concentrated in China.

The state-owned Bank of China is the world’s fourth-largest bank by assets. This bank created an infographic about the Bitcoin. The purpose of this infographic is to increase awareness about the cryptocurrencies. Also, the bank wants to help people to understand how this industry operates in general.

China has the potential to affect the crypto currency market significantly. Crypto investing might become a profitable business for its vast population. According to several reports, China’s central bank plans to create an official state cryptocurrency.

Digital currencies attract people because they offer a decentralized system. It means that there is no central bank which controls the system. Moreover, cryptocurrencies created by central banks will have a different structure. This might reduce the interest of potential investors. Strict regulations hurt Libra. It is an example that overly regulated cryptocurrencies might create additional problems.

ERC-1155 Ethereum Emerges as Designed Tokens for Gaming

ERC-1155 Ethereum emerged as a token specifically designed for video games. Reportedly, this addresses major development issues with games running on the blockchain.

This gaming token has a simplified method on exchanges of tokens which recognize various qualities of digital items found in video games.

Moreover, ERC-1155s differentiate the properties of in-game items like health packs and customized one such as weapons.

Enjin CTO Witek Radomski announced the emergence of the ERC-1155.

According to Radomski, a video game running off the blockchain is tight due to ERC-20 and 721 tokens’ incompatibility.

Ethereum Co-Founder Charles Hoskinson believes that the future is bright for cryptocurrencies

“The biggest problem with existing token designs is that they require deploying a separate contract to the blockchain for each and every item type!… It’s like being forced to buy a brand new computer for every single app you want to use,” Radomski wrote in his company’s website.

There could be potential for blockchain-based video games. In fact, there have been a growing number of companies which create platforms for decentralized video games.

The Loom Network, similar to Lisk Networks, uses the said architecture with individual games running as DApps off sidechains. DApps is a feature which can make Loom’s platform scalable.

Furthermore, the Terra Virtua platform in London plans to have its public sale in the following month. It also creates a platform specifically designed for the development of virtual reality games. The platform’s first phase launches in Q1 of 2019, according to the company’s website.

As per Crypto Briefing, there are similarities between cryptocurrency and video games. To end the growing black market for gold tokens, the popular World of Warcraft released its own WoW token.

The launch of an Ethereum token in the gaming world suggests an escalating blockchain’s sophistication in tangible real-world use-cases.

Some are still uncertain about the domination of cryptocurrencies in the global financial institutions. But the cryptocurrencies could just take the gaming world in a snap.

‘Future is bright’ for crypto, says Ethereum Co-Founder

Ethereum Co-founder Charles Hoskinson believes that the future is still bright for cryptocurrencies.

“What’s often missed by the cryptocurrency is going to die broken record media is that after the next wave of regulation, Wall Street is showing up to the party with all their locked up capital. That’s tens of trillions of dollars entering the space eventually. Future is bright,” Hoskinson said in a tweet.

Recently, Goldman Sachs opened a trading desk of bitcoin for its clients. From this, this would invite other companies to come along as soon as the regulation for cryptocurrencies becomes clearer.

Ethereum Foundation Assists Launch of Blockchain Research Center

Ethereum Foundation supported the launching of Blockchain Research Center in Stanford University.

Known as most the reputable institutions in research and higher learning, Stanford University will now have its Blockchain Research Center.

The establishment of the center is to examine the process of distributed ledger technology in transforming traditional businesses. This was according to Stanford University’s statement on its website.

Co-founder Vitalike Buterin of Ethereum expressed his excitement in a tweet about the development of the plan.

Stanford computer scientists are the founders of the Center for Blockchain Research. This initiative is to dedicate for research and understanding on a technology that could fundamentally put change.

Price of Ethereum is resisting the bear market

Other firms such as InterChain Foundation, DFINITY Stiftung, PolyChain Capital and DFINITY Stiftung also contributed to the successful launch.

For over five years, the preliminary blockchain research will linger. Dan Boneh and David Mazieres, both highly reputable professors of computer science, will head the research.

Moreover, other Stanford blockchain of particle physics, law and engineering will be working with the leaders. Further, the research program will also help the university’s formulation of relevant DLT implementation courses for students.

“Blockchain will become increasingly critical to doing business globally. Stanford should be at the forefront of efforts to improve, apply and understand the many ripple effects of this technology […] Once you get into the details you quickly realize that this area will generate many Ph.D. these across all of computer science and beyond,” said cryptography and computer security professor, Boneh.

Reports surfaced that US colleges and universities had begun offering courses related to blockchain and bitcoin.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Duke, Carnegie Mellon, and University of Maryland and, Cornell have occupied the frontline.

At Duke, there were about 231 students who enrolled reportedly in the blockchain and cryptocurrency courses at Duke.

“The students in my class are from every possible discipline…They understand that this is going to disrupt many different areas of business, and they want to be disruptors, not the disruptees,” Harvey said.

China Ranks Ethereum as the No. 1 Blockchain, Bitcoin No. 13

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China released its new public blockchain ratings where Ethereum is ranked 1st and Bitcoin 13 out of 28 places.

The China Center of Information Industry Development, part of the ministry, created and released Global Public Chain Assessment Index. The index evaluates the technological capability, usefulness of the application, and innovativeness of the project.

Blockchain is the system that powers cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. It is a shared database that is maintained by a network of computers connected to the internet.

China ranked Ethereum as the number 1 blockchain.

According to the index, Ethereum scored very high in all the 3 categories analyzed. 80.3 in technology, 23.7 in applicability, and 25.4 in creativity. Ethereum’s total score is 129.4 points.

Furthermore, 2nd place comes Steem with 115.9 points and Lisk in 3rd with a score of 104.8.

Ethereum has become the foundation for many initial coin offerings. Start-ups create their own cryptocurrencies and sell them to investors to generate financing for their projects.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is in 13th place after scoring 88.1 points, the same as Verge.

The index, which has 28 blockchain projects with their corresponding cryptocurrencies, will be updated monthly.

The sector has more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies. It has a total market capitalization of nearly $380 billion, according to coinmarket.com.

The largest of the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin last traded at $8,153.39 on the BitStamp platform. However, Ethereum was lower by 1.4% at $689.62.

China Bans Cryptocurrency but Ranks them

China’s government is no fan of cryptocurrency due to the financial instability that comes with it. However, it has welcomed the development of the underlying blockchain technology.

Eric Zhao, an engineer at the Chinese Academy of Science and the operator of CNLedger Twitter account, said he won’t take the official crypto ratings seriously because “most old-schooled experts haven’t followed the crypto space long enough to grasp some of the traits of [the] tech and community that can’t be found elsewhere.”

“I believe at least it’s a sign that the officials are starting to treat crypto projects more like a neutral endeavor towards better technology and innovations, rather than just challenging the power and authority of banks and government.”

Moreover, the cryptocurrency has expressed discontent over China’s rankings and their methods. Most especially with the fact that it keeps Bitcoin at the number 13 position in line with Verge. Being the oldest and still the most dominant and secured cryptocurrency that failed to reach top 10 dissatisfied token’s enthusiast.

“Blockchains are highly diverse in what they are trying to accomplish, and many try to quite creatively distinguish themselves from each other,” said Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong.

CME, Crypto Facilities Launch Two Ethereum Price Indexes

CME Group has launched an Ethereum reference rate and a real-time ether-dollar index in partnership with Crypto Facilities.

The move has fueled speculation that the world’s largest future exchange may launch another cryptocurrency futures product soon.

However, the company said it had no plans currently for Ethereum futures. But the structure of the indexes is very similar to the ones behind CME’s bitcoin futures.

Two Ethereum price indexes are launched by CME.

“The focus right now is on the index itself,” said Tim McCourt, managing director and global head of equity products and alternative investments at CME.

Moreover, the Ether-Dollar Reference Rate will provide a daily benchmark price in US dollars at 4 pm London Time. The Ether-Dollar Real-Time Index will provide a real-time ether price in US dollars.

UK-based exchange Crypto Facilities will calculate both measures with the use of data from trading platforms Kraken and Bitstamp.

Additionally, the reference rates are available on both companies’ websites. It will also be distributed on the CME Group Market Data Platform beginning June 4, 2018.

“The Ether Reference Rate and Ether Real-Time Index are designed to meet evolving needs of this marketplace,” said McCourt. “Providing price transparency and a credible price reference source is a key development for users of Ethereum.”

Ethereum is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin. The digital currency has a market value of $70 billion as of Monday.

Further, ether traded near $730, lower about 45% from its record hit earlier this year, according to Coinbase.

It is “something that a few exchanges have expressed interest in listing derivatives on,” Brian Quintenz, commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said at the Consensus cryptocurrency conference Monday.

“The decision needs to be made carefully.”

CME vs. CBOE

The Chicago-based company’s move is similar to last year’s competition with Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). Both companies launched their futures contracts based on bitcoin almost in lockstep.

CME launched bitcoin futures in mid-December, just over a year after launching bitcoin indexes. Many expected the futures to deliver more investors, supporting bitcoin prices higher.

However, the cryptocurrency traded near $8,700 Monday, less than half its all-time high of above $19,000 hit in December.

Earlier in May, the Federal Reserve released a report, suggesting that the bitcoin futures launch led decline from its $20,000 peak.

Trading volume in CME’s bitcoin futures was initially slow but popped in late April to a record high of more than 10,000 contracts. Composite volume Monday was around 5,000 contracts, about a tenth of the WTI crude futures volume, according to FactSet.

First Version of Ethereum’s Casper Releases on GitHub

Ethereum released the 1st version of Casper on May 8, which plans to improve to its blockchain network’s consensus protocol.

Danny Ryan is the developer behind Casper the Friendly Finality Gadget (FFG). He posted Casper v0.1 “First Release” of the code on GitHub. The new release provides client developers, auditors, and other external parties to more easily integrate the source code into their software for testing.

“v0.1.0 marks us more clearly tagging releases to help clients and external auditors more easily track the contract and changes,” Ryan said.

Ethereum’s first version of Casper was released on May 8 on GitHub.

Further, he gave feedback to a Reddit post about the upgrade.

“More than just the research team is using the contract now – auditors, client devs, etc – so we wanted to start issuing clearer versioning and changelogs to help everyone stay organized,” he added.

Currently, Ethereum achieves consensus through Proof of Work (PoW), which is referred to as mining. But developers wish to shift Ethereum to Proof of Stake (PoS). That means node operators would deposit or “stake” ether to become network validators.

However, they argued that shifting to PoS will mitigate “wasted electricity” consumed by mining as this is a computing-intensive process. In addition, given that network validators will have lower overhead under PoS, developers claim that Ethereum’s inflation rate can be lowered accordingly.

Moreover, once Casper runs on the network, Ethereum will use a hybrid consensus algorithm that combines both PoW and PoS. Initially, consensus will be achieved through PoW, although PoS will gradually take on a heavy workload in subsequent releases.

Casper’s Adopt will lessen Ethereum’s inflation

Ethereum will reduce its inflation by 80% in just a few months. With the Casper upgrade, blocks will be rewarding 0.82 ETH instead of the current 3 ETH reducing inflation to 2% per year.

Further, after different tests and discussions, the new figures are now in place and will allow the 2 big ETH clients, Parity and Geth, to implement the latest upgrades.

PoW uses a significant amount of energy and has no economic finality. The Casper FFG contract can be layered on top of any block proposal mechanism. Meaning, it will provide finality to the underlying chain.

The FFG staking mechanism requires minimal changes to the protocol. This would enable the network to fully test and vet Casper FFG on top of PoW.

Additionally, with the reduction of the inflation, the price of ETH should also be affected. There will be an increased demand for virtual currencies as more individuals would enter the market. And a decreased offer, which is 2% inflation annually.

Consequently, this should also increase ETH’s price in the middle and long term.

Furthermore, the exploit permits a hacker to pass an unusually high value to the exchange and get a massive number of tokens in exchange.

“We are suspending the deposits of all ERC-20 tokens due to the discovery of a new smart contract bug – ‘BatchOverFlow’,” OKEx wrote in a statement. “By exploiting the bug, attackers can generate an extremely large amount of tokens, and deposit them into a normal address.”

“Thus makes many of the ERC-20 tokens vulnerable to price manipulations of the attackers.”

The OKEx team said that the exchange will be suspending the deposits until “the bug is fixed” to “protect public interest.”

Furthermore, it wasn’t confirmed how many ERC-20 tokens are vulnerable to the bug or which ones are affected. As of today, BEC is the only confirmed token that got attacked.

Meanwhile, the biggest concern is that this Ethereum Smart Contract bug will permit price manipulations of the ERC-20 tokens.

Similarly, an incident occurred in March on the cryptocurrency exchange Binance when attackers manipulated Viacoin.

Besides OKEx, other major exchanges also suspend ERC-20 tokens

The issue prompted a number of major exchanges to suspend ERC-20 tokens as they investigate. These include Poloniex, Changelly, Quoine, and HitBTC.

Elsewhere, Huobi.Pro separately announced on April 25 that it has suspended all coins, but has since limited that to ERC-20-based tokens.

In addition, Poloniex has moved to reinstate services for ERC-20 tokens.

ECR-20 is a token standard for the Ethereum blockchain that was developed in 2016. It defines a common list of standards for every token on the Ethereum platform to follow. This enables developers to accurately predict the nature of future tokens on the platform, reducing the amount of work done.

Recently, the support for exchange of ETH coins for ECR-20 was done through a new token-swap feature. This way, it allows MyEthereumWallet users to convert their Ethereum into many different tokens. These include Kyber Network Coin, EOS, OmiseGO, and DAI.

New Ethereum Tech Focuses on Security for Scalable State Channels

A group of researchers recently unveiled a new white paper entitled “Foundations of State Channel Networks”. The group hailing from Warsaw was inspired by Bitcoin’s own lightning fast network. The paper shows an outline of a protocol designed to provide support to ethereum.

The protocol will help ethereum scale to support higher volumes of more complex smart contracts.

There are numerous ethereum projects aiming to build solutions for the problem. The group’s approach to its protocol on the other hand has its own unique features. The protocol dubbed as Perun focuses on security. It provides formal security definitions and security proofs for its protocol.

In essence, Perun works just like any other “state channels”, in the way that they all aim to move transactions off of the blockchain. However, there is a difference.

New ethereum tech offers security to scalable state channels.

It lies on the fact that involved parties can register the current state of the contract at any time on the blockchain. Doing so will allow smart contracts to rewind channels. This will take them back to the last state at which the parties agreed on terms.

“In case when two (possibly malicious) parties send conflicting states to the channel contract, the logic of the contract will select the latest state on which both users have agreed on,” the paper reads.

Co-author of the paper and associate professor at University of Warsaw, Stefan Dziembowski pointed out that the paper cannot be undersold. He argues that the nature of value transfers make this

“We are convinced that in the context of cryptocurrencies, a sound security analysis is of particular importance because security flaws have a direct monetary value and hence, unlike in many other settings, are guaranteed to be exploited,” Dziembowskisaid in an interview.

Ethereum Maker Praises Paper

It proved to be a sought-after goal as the researchers have already began partnering with tech giant Bosch. The two will be working together to assemble a prototype. Additionally, the project has received praise from ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin.

Buterin was actually the first to praise the idea. He suggested that the security proofs implemented by the team were a step in the right direction for the economy as a whole. He added that it should be studied, if not adopted, through scaling projects of all kinds.

“I definitely do think that we need some kind of general-purpose machinery for formally verifying properties of layer-two systems in general,” said Buterin.